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07 - A Confession - Leo Tolstory · Philosophy and Faith

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  Speaker 1: Chapter seven of a confession by Leo Tolstoy. Not finding
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  Speaker 1: an explanation in science, I began to seek forward in life,
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  Speaker 1: hoping to find it among the people around me. And
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  Speaker 1: I began to observe how the people around me, people
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  Speaker 1: like myself, lived, and what their attitude was to this
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  Speaker 1: question which had brought me to despair. And this is
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  Speaker 1: what I found among people who were in the same
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  Speaker 1: position as myself, as regards education and manner of life.
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  Speaker 1: I found that for people in my circle, there are
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  Speaker 1: four ways out of the terrible position in which we
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  Speaker 1: are all placed. The first was that of ignorance. It
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  Speaker 1: consists of not knowing, of not understanding that life is
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  Speaker 1: evil and an absurdity. People of this sort, chiefly women,
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  Speaker 1: or very young or very dull people, have not yet
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  Speaker 1: understood the question of life which presented itself to Schopenhauer, Solomon,
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  Speaker 1: and Buddha. They see neither the dragon that awaits them,
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  Speaker 1: nor the mice gnawing at the shrub by which they
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  Speaker 1: are hanging. And they licked the drops of honey. But
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  Speaker 1: they licked these drops of honey only for a while.
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  Speaker 1: Something will turn their attention to the dragon and the
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  Speaker 1: mice and there will be an end to their licking
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  Speaker 1: from them. I had nothing to learn. One cannot cease
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  Speaker 1: to know what one does know. The second way out
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  Speaker 1: is epicureanism. It consists while knowing of the hopelessness of life,
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  Speaker 1: in making use meanwhile of the advantages one has disregarding
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  Speaker 1: the dragon and the mice, and looking the honey in
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  Speaker 1: the best way, especially if there is much of it
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  Speaker 1: within reach. Solomon expresses this way. Thus, then I commanded mirth,
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  Speaker 1: because man hath no better thing under the sun than
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  Speaker 1: to eat, to drink, and to be merry, and that
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  Speaker 1: this should accompany him in his labor the days of
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  Speaker 1: his life, which God giveth him under the sun. Therefore,
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  Speaker 1: eat thy bread with joy, and drink thy wine with
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  Speaker 1: a merry heart, with joyfully with the wife whom thou lovest,
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  Speaker 1: all the days of the life of thy vanity. For
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  Speaker 1: this is thy portion in life and in thy labors,
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  Speaker 1: which thou takest under the sun. Whatsoever thy hand fitteth
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  Speaker 1: to do do with thy might, For there is not work,
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  Speaker 1: nor device, nor knowledge nor wisdom in the grave. Whither
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  Speaker 1: thou goest. That is the way in which the majority
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  Speaker 1: of people of our circle make life possible for themselves.
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  Speaker 1: Their circumstances furnish them with more welfare than of hardship,
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  Speaker 1: and their moral dulness makes it possible for them to
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  Speaker 1: forget that the advantage of their position is accidental, and
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  Speaker 1: that not everyone can have a thousand wives and palaces
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  Speaker 1: like Solomon, and that for everyone who has a thousand wives,
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  Speaker 1: there are a thousand without a wife, and that for
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  Speaker 1: every palace there are a thousand people who have to
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  Speaker 1: build it in the sweat of their brows. And that
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  Speaker 1: the accident that has to day made me a Solomon
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  Speaker 1: may tomorrow make me solomon slave. The dullness of these
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  Speaker 1: people's imagination enables them to forget the things that gave
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  Speaker 1: boodh no peace, the inevitability of sickness, old age, and death,
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  Speaker 1: which to day or tomorrow will destroy all these pleasures.
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  Speaker 1: So think and feel the majority of people of our
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  Speaker 1: day and our manner of life. The fact that some
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  Speaker 1: of these people declare the dullness of their thoughts and
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  Speaker 1: imaginations to be a philosophy which they call positive, does
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  Speaker 1: not remove them, in my opinion, from the ranks of
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  Speaker 1: those who, to avoid seeing the question lick the honey.
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  Speaker 1: I could not imitate these people, not having their dullness
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  Speaker 1: of imagination, I could not artificially produce it in myself.
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  Speaker 1: I could not tear my eyes away from the mice
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  Speaker 1: in the dragon, as no vital man can after he
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  Speaker 1: has once seen them. The third escape is that of
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  Speaker 1: strength and energy. It consists in destroying life when one
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  Speaker 1: has understood that it is an evil and an absurdity.
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  Speaker 1: A few exceptionally strong and consistent people act so, having
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  Speaker 1: understood the stupidity of the joke that has been played
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  Speaker 1: on them, and having understood that it is better to
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  Speaker 1: be dead than to be alive, and that is best
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  Speaker 1: of all not to exist, They act accordingly and promptly
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  Speaker 1: end this stupid joke, since there are means a rope
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  Speaker 1: round one's neck, water and a knife to stick in
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  Speaker 1: one's heart, or the trains on a railway. And the
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  Speaker 1: number of those in our circle who act this way
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  Speaker 1: becomes greater and greater. And for the most part they
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  Speaker 1: act though at the best time of their life, when
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  Speaker 1: the strength of their mind is in full bloom, and
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  Speaker 1: few habits degrading to the mind have as yet been acquired.
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  Speaker 1: I saw that this was the worthiest way of escape.
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  Speaker 1: And I wish to adopt it. The fourth way out
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  Speaker 1: is that of weakness. It consists in seeing the truth
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  Speaker 1: of the situation and yet clinging to life, knowing in
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  Speaker 1: advance that nothing can come of it. People of this
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  Speaker 1: kind know that death is better than life, but not
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  Speaker 1: having my strength to act rationally to end the deception
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  Speaker 1: quickly and kill themselves, they seemed to wait for something.
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  Speaker 1: This is the escape of weakness. For if I know
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  Speaker 1: what is best and it is within my power, why
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  Speaker 1: not yield to what is best? I found myself in
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  Speaker 1: that category. So people of my class evade the terrible
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  Speaker 1: contradiction in four ways. Strained my attention as I would,
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  Speaker 1: I saw no way except these four. One was not
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  Speaker 1: to understand that life is senseless, vanity, and and evil,
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  Speaker 1: and that it is better not to live. I could
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  Speaker 1: not help knowing this, and when I once knew that,
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  Speaker 1: I could not shut my eyes to it. The second
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  Speaker 1: way was to use life such as without thinking to
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  Speaker 1: the future, and I could not do that. I, like Sakimuni,
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  Speaker 1: could not ride out hunting when I knew that old age,
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  Speaker 1: suffering and death exist. My imagination was too vivid, Nor
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  Speaker 1: could I rejoice in the momentary accidents that for an
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  Speaker 1: instant threw pleasure to my lot. The third way, having
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  Speaker 1: understood that life is evil and stupid, was to end
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  Speaker 1: it by killing oneself. I understood that, but somehow still
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  Speaker 1: did not kill myself. The fourth way was to live,
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  Speaker 1: like Solomon in Schopenhauer, knowing that life was a stupid
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  Speaker 1: joke played upon us, and yet still go on living,
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  Speaker 1: washing oneself, dressing, dining, talking, and even writing books. This
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  Speaker 1: was to me repulsive and tormenting, but I remained in
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  Speaker 1: that position. I see now that if I did not
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  Speaker 1: kill myself, it was due to some dim consciousness of
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  Speaker 1: the invalidity of my thoughts. However, convincing an indubitable appeared
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  Speaker 1: to me the sequence of my thoughts and of those
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  Speaker 1: of the wise, that had brought us to the admission
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  Speaker 1: of the senselessness of life. There remained in me a
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  Speaker 1: vague doubt of the justice of my conclusion. It was
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  Speaker 1: like this, I, my reason, have acknowledged that life is senseless.
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  Speaker 1: If there is nothing higher than reason, and there is
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  Speaker 1: not nothing can prove that there is, then reason is
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  Speaker 1: the creator of life. For me. If reason did not exist,
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  Speaker 1: there would be for me no life. How could reason
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  Speaker 1: deny life when it is the creator of life? Or,
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  Speaker 1: to put it in another way, were there no life,
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  Speaker 1: my reason would not exist. And therefore reason is life's son.
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  Speaker 1: Life is all reason is the fruit, and yet reason
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  Speaker 1: rejects life itself. I felt that there was something wrong here.
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  Speaker 1: Life is a senseless evil, that is certain, said I
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  Speaker 1: to myself. Yet I have lived and am still living,
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  Speaker 1: and all mankind lived and lives. How is that? Why
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  Speaker 1: does it live when it is possible not to live?
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  Speaker 1: Is it that only I, in Schopenhauer are wise enough
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  Speaker 1: to understand the senselessness and evil of life? The reasoning
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  Speaker 1: showing the vanity of life is not difficult, and it
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  Speaker 1: has long been familiar to the very simplest of folk.
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  Speaker 1: And yet they have lived and still lived. How is
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  Speaker 1: it that they all live and never think of doubting
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  Speaker 1: the reasonableness of life? My knowledge, confirmed by the wisdom
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  Speaker 1: of the sages, has shown me that everything on Earth,
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  Speaker 1: organic and inorganic, is all the most cleverly arranged. Only
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  Speaker 1: my own position is stupid. And these fools, the enormous
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  Speaker 1: masks of people, know nothing about how everything organic and
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  Speaker 1: inorganic in the world is arranged. But they live and
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  Speaker 1: it seems to them that their life is very wisely arranged.
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  Speaker 1: And it struck me. But what if there is something
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  Speaker 1: I do not yet know? Ignorance behaves just in this way.
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  Speaker 1: Ignorance always says just what I am saying. When it
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  Speaker 1: does not know something, it says that what it does
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  Speaker 1: not know is stupid. Indeed, it appears that there is
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  Speaker 1: a whole humanity that lived and lives as if understanding
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  Speaker 1: the meaning of life. For without understanding it could not live.
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  Speaker 1: But I say that all life is senseless, and that
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  Speaker 1: I cannot live. Nothing prevents our denying life by suicide. Well,
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  Speaker 1: then kill yourself and you won't discuss. If life displeases you,
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  Speaker 1: kill yourself. You live and cannot understand the meaning of life,
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  Speaker 1: then finish it. Do not fool about in life saying
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  Speaker 1: and writing that you do not understand it. You have
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  Speaker 1: come into good company where people are contented and know
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  Speaker 1: what they are doing. If you find that dull and repulsive,
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  Speaker 1: go away. Indeed, what are we who are convinced of
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  Speaker 1: the necessity of suicide and yet do not commit it?
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  Speaker 1: But the weakest, most inconsistent, and to put it plainly,
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  Speaker 1: the stupidest of men fussing about with our own stupidity,
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  Speaker 1: as a fool fusses about with a painted hussy. For
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  Speaker 1: our wisdom, however indubitable it may be, has not given
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  Speaker 1: us the knowledge of the meaning of our life. But
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  Speaker 1: all mankind who sustain life, millions of them, do not
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  Speaker 1: doubt the meaning of life. Indeed, from the most distant
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  Speaker 1: time from which I knew anything, when life began, people
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  Speaker 1: have lived knowing the argument about the vanity of life,
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  Speaker 1: which has shown me its senselessness, and yet they have
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  Speaker 1: lived attributing some meaning to it. From the time when
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  Speaker 1: any life began among men, they had that meaning of life,
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  Speaker 1: and they led that life which descended to me. All
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  Speaker 1: that is in me and around me, all corporeal and incorporeal,
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  Speaker 1: is the fruit of their knowledge of life. Those very
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  Speaker 1: instruments of thought with which I consider this life and
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  Speaker 1: condemn it, were all devised not by me, but by them.
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  Speaker 1: I myself was born, taught, and brought up thanks to them.
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  Speaker 1: They dug out the iron, taught us to cut down
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  Speaker 1: the forest, tame the cows and the horses, taught us
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  Speaker 1: to sow corn and to live together, organized our life.
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  Speaker 1: Taught me to think and speak, and I their product,
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  Speaker 1: fed supplied with drink, taught by them, thinking with their
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  Speaker 1: thoughts and words, have argued that they are in absurdity.
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  Speaker 1: There is something wrong, said I to myself. I have
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  Speaker 1: blundered somewhere, but it was a long time before I
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  Speaker 1: could find out what that mistake was. End of chapter seven.